Blog

It’s not often I write about things I’m doing in the course of my work on the public health team at City of York Council (maybe I should?), but I just wanted to tell you about a project I’ve been helping with recently.

Launched this week, Breathe 2025 is an initiative supported by Public Health England and various local authorities with the ambitious aim of creating a smokefree future for the next generation of children in Yorkshire and the Humber. The idea is that in ten years’ time smoking will be unusual, and hopefully a thing of the past for young people.

Breathe 2025 is asking people and organisations to show their support by going to the campaign website or Facebook page and signing up to one or more simple, practical actions. This could be pledging to watch and share the Breathe 2025 video, or promising to display a Breathe 2025 poster. There are a range of simple actions to choose from, as individuals or on behalf of an organisation such as a school, GP or local business.

Smoking is still the greatest single cause of early death, killing around 100,000 people in the UK each year – an astonishing figure! And of course, the strain this puts on the NHS is huge. As most people start to smoke before the age of 18, it’s vital to target potential smokers at an early age, before they take it up and it becomes a habit. Although Yorkshire and the Humber has the highest adult smoking prevalence in England (20.1% compared to an England average of 18%), the good news is that only one in eight 15-year-olds smoke and the proportion of young smokers is dropping. Within the next decade there could even be a generation of children that don’t smoke. How amazing would that be?

I think Breathe 2025 is a great idea and am happy to be supporting it. You can do the same by visiting its website.